Bill Maher is right to condemn religious practices that violate fundamental human rights. Religious communities must do more to counter extremist interpretations of their faith. But failing to recognize that religion is embedded in culture โ and making a blanket judgment about the worldโs second largest religion โ is simply bigotry.
Reza AslanWhen I was in the US, I felt that the discourse there surrounding Muslims as the other, problematising Muslims and Islam as the other was very similar to what we find in Australia, which is that the image of Islam is a constructed image in the West. We are starting from a point of view that Islam and Muslims - well Islam is a violent, misogynistic, hateful religion and that is where the debate always starts from - that presumption underlies the discourse.
Reza AslanWell I wouldn't want to tell Obama specifically what to do, but obviously he's already promised publicly and privately, both before and after he was elected president, that he was going to open up communications with Iran.
Reza AslanWe need to do whatever we can, legally and within our power, to remove Donald Trump from office as fast as possible before something serious happens in this country.
Reza AslanObama has been the single worst president in modern American history in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Reza AslanMany of the prophets of Jesus's time were thought to just be mad men, just sort of crazy people who were claiming to channel the divine. Perhaps that means we should be a little less judgmental of some of our own crazies talking about God on the corner. They might actually have found a pretty comfortable place in Jesus's time.
Reza Aslan